Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1640
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Evening, January 8, 1882
“And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched My clothes? And His disciples said to Him, You see the multitude thronging You, and do You say, Who touched Me?” Mark 5:30,31.
WE just now read the story of this woman who was immediately healed. Spiritual persons know that the miracles recorded by the Evangelist are true because they have seen them reproduced. That is to say, we have not seen an issue of blood stopped by the touch of Christ’s garments, but we have seen the spiritual counterpart of it. We have seen men and women healed of all kinds of spiritual and moral diseases by coming into contact with our Lord Jesus. They have touched Jesus and they have been made whole, for Jesus lives still and His healing work is not ended, but has only entered on another phase. Jesus has said, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” And, being with us, He is not here inactively or ineffectually, but He is here—the same yesterday, today and forever—to work the same miracles, only not on men’s bodies, but on their souls.
Jesus is present to heal leprosies of the mind and to open the eyes of the understanding. Yes, He is still among us to raise those who are dead in trespasses and sins. Though we live in a great leper house, yet are we comforted because we see that Jesus walks the hospitals and still heals on the right hand and on the left, all those who come into contact with Him. At the sight of His wonders of Grace, we cry out as they did in the days of His flesh, “He has done all things well!” As the miracles of our Lord Jesus Christ are pictures of His wondrous works in the spiritual kingdom, so are they instructive because they set forth much impressive and precious Truths of God most vividly. Tonight I have but one desire and that is to lead some poor sin-sick soul to Jesus. And I shall not be satisfied unless very many shall, this evening, for the first time, break through this crowd and press forward to touch the hem of Christ’s robe and find immediate healing!
I shall speak upon three things. First, upon this wonderful Person, who, if He is but touched, gives out a healing virtue. Secondly, upon a very able touch which is evidently a distinct thing from the touch and pressure of the eager, curious crowd. And then we will ask you to answer the singular personal question which the Savior puts to this assembly, “Who touched Me?” Perhaps there are some here, tonight, who will be able to say with trembling assurance, “I touched Him and He has made me whole.” May the Holy Spirit cause it to be so!
I. First, then, I have the blessed work, far beyond my power, but, oh, how sweet to my soul, of speaking upon THIS WONDERFUL PERSON. The Lord Jesus Christ, as He stood in the midst of the crowd, was charged with a power which is called by our translators, “virtue.” An efficacious healing force was in Him. Sometimes He emitted it by words, frequently by the touch of His hands and, in this case, it seemed to stream, even, from His garments when He was but fitly and properly touched. He was charged with Omnipotent blessing and those who came into contact with Him were made whole! Do not think, dear Friends, that He is less full of benedictions for the sons of men tonight. No, if I may venture to say as much, He is more full of healing power, for He has bowed His head to death and worn the crown of thorns—and He has risen from the tomb and gone up into Glory leading captivity captive!
In our midst at this moment He is, if it is possible, more charged with energy to bless than even when He walked the fields of Palestine and healed the feeble men and women of His time! Observe that Christ’s power to bless lay mainly in the fact of His Deity. That humble, weary, way-worn Man was the Son of the Highest! Because He was still very God of very God, His will was Omnipotent. He did but speak to fever or leprosy and they went at His bidding—even as the centurion put it, “I am a man under authority and I say unto this man, Go, and he goes, and to my servant, Do this, and he
does it.” Even so, the Divine Christ did but will it and diseases fled at His bidding. He is not less Divine today. At this hour He cries, “Look unto Me and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.”
But His power to bless us lay, also, in the fact that He had become Man for our sake. I speak with lowly reverence, but “it behooved Christ to suffer.” He found it necessary to be compassed with infirmities that He might save us from our infirmities. He was able to heal not only because He was God, but because He was Emmanuel, God With Us. Oh, the blessed mystery of the Incarnation! What a fount of mercy it is to us miserable sinners! He that spanned the heavens condescended to be wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger! He that bears up the pillars of the universe was, Himself, weary here below—and by His weakness gave us strength! Because He took our sicknesses, therefore is He able to deliver us from spiritual sickness and make us every bit whole. Oh, see, my Brothers and Sisters, God Incarnate present among us, “able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.”